


I Was In The House When The House Burned Down

by LeftHandOfSnarkness



Series: SuperStrange [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, John and Jim are friends, Monster Hunters, war buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:22:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftHandOfSnarkness/pseuds/LeftHandOfSnarkness
Summary: Weird things keep happening in Hawkins, Indiana, but Jim Hopper thinks one of the weirdest is how his old war buddy always shows up in the aftermath.
Relationships: John Winchester & Jim Hopper
Series: SuperStrange [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630804
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	1. If you won't leave me...

**Author's Note:**

> There really need to be more Stranger Things/ Supernatural cross-overs!  
> For the purposes of this story I made Jim a Marine instead of a soldier. He's older than John by canon, but since I knew what rank John was, I just went with him being senior- maybe that's just how they got drafted. The title is from a song by Warren Zevon, and the fake name John uses is a shout-out to him as well.
> 
> I own nothing.

Sometimes, when Jim looks at his old friend, he thinks John might know more than he is letting on. 

He had rolled into Hawkins in December for one of his random, unannounced visits, and waited until they were about half a dozen beers in before saying "Heard you've had some crazy shit going on up here, Jimmy." And logically, Hopper knows that he probably picked up a newspaper when he stopped to fill up that ridiculous car of his, probably read the same bullshit cover-up that everyone else did. But John's looking at him with those clear blue eyes, and Hopper realizes suddenly that his friend is a lot less drunk than he is. Suddenly remembers how good John always was at getting information out of people, even back in their Corps days. Remembers that same, crinkle-eyed grin that got him to spill his secrets in the jungles of Viet Nam, back when he was just cherry PV2 James Hopper and John was a Lance Corporal and his squad leader. Suddenly feels like this is a set-up.  
He answers carefully, makes sure he sticks to the company line, about the "confusion" over whose body was found in the quarry, about how Barbara Holland was "missing" and there was no evidence otherwise, about how _helpful_ the nice people at the Department of Energy had been about the whole thing. He wishes he was a better liar. But John just grins and says "Sure, kid" in the same way he always has, even though Jim is older than him, technically, and they are both too gray at the temples to be kids anymore. He doesn't press the issue, but the look he gives him, long and clear and knowing, makes Jim second guess everything he's just said. John's off at the crack of dawn the next morning, and Jim wonders where the hell he is always driving from and to. He knows that before his wife died, Johnny used to be a mechanic in Kansas, but last time he checked being a mechanic wasn't the type of job you needed to travel for. He wondered why that had never occurred to him before.

Then suddenly it's nearly a year later, and even more bullshit has happened, and suddenly John is there again, sitting in the police station, charming Flo with his smiles and silver tongue. Jim sees his car out in the parking lot as he pulls in (god knows there is no missing that shiny, black monstrosity) and walks into the precinct just in time to catch the tail end of a particularly embarrassing story about some of the things he had done, drunk in a bar in Da Nang, and the two of them are laughing when John looks up and sees him. "Jimmy!" he says, moving toward him and throwing one arm around him in a rough hug. "Johnny, you got business in town?" he says, and John grins at him like they are sharing a joke. "Just passing through," he says "thought I might buy you a beer." So they go down to the VFW, and John opens them a tab, hands over a credit card with "Warren Zivotovsky" listed as the name, and they rehash the same war stories they always talk about when they get together. It isn't until John says it that Jim realizes he's been waiting all night for _something_. It's almost a relief when he says "So, Jimmy, an awful lot of weird things happen in this little town of yours." He says it low and quiet, like it's a secret, like it hasn't been all over the national news. And Jim has to remember a different cover story now, about chemicals and government labs, and testing and all sorts of other bullshit that deflects attention away from inter-dimensional rifts and telepathic 13-year-olds. Johnny just sits there and drinks his beer and listens to him ramble, and when Jim finally tells himself enough is enough and manages to shut the fuck up, Johnny asks him the question he'd expected the least.

"They bury that Holland girl?"

"What?"

"The girl, the one killed by the, what was it? Chemical leak? They bury her?"

"What the _fuck_ kind of a question is that, John? Of course they fucking buried her. Poor parents finally got some closure."

"Buried or cremated?" John's lit a cigarette now, and the smoke curls up between them, swirling in the stale air, and Jim feels cold, suddenly. _Why the fuck is Johnny asking a question like that, like he knows they never actually recovered her body, like he knows something is fishy about this whole thing?_ He orders another drink, Zivotovsky is paying, after all, and by the time it lands in front of him John has quit looking at him, changes the subject, asks what the deal is with that dimwit officer he has working for him, laughs when Jim launches into a story about one of Officer Callahan's more idiotic adventures. He's gone again in the morning, says he's going down to New Orleans for a bit, and it suddenly seems like the wrong time to confront him about his phony credit cards and weird questions. So Jim tells him to drive safe and to hit him up next time he's in the area. 

"Russians, Jimmy, really? You trying to fight the Cold War all on your own?" John teases, another year and even more bizarre events later. That knowing look is still glinting there in his eye, and Jim is getting sick of it. Maybe he's spending too much time around Murray, but he's starting to think that John's little trips into town might not be a coincidence. Wonders if John became some kind of government agent, or maybe was physic, or just attracted to misery. John is leaning back against his car, cigarette spiraling smoke into the freezing cold air, and Hopper looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time in a long time. He notices that he still stands the same way he did when he was 19 and had a M249 slung over his shoulders, that his knuckles are covered in scars and some of his fingers are crooked, that there is the hint of what might be a tattoo just under his collarbone. That the back end of that obnoxious Impala is lower to the ground than it should be. "What's in the trunk of the car, Winchester?" he asks, and John throws back his head and _laughs_ like he has been waiting ages for Jim to ask him. Moves around and pops it open so that Hopper can see the neat stacks of ammunition, the dozen or so knifes, the bags of salt and cans of gas. Jim steps closer, gaping at the arsenal that is laid out before him. John claps him on the shoulder. "Next time you need help fighting monsters, do me a favor and give me a call, Jimmy. Your amateur hour shit is going to get you killed."


	2. ...I'll Find Somebody Who Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and John have a little talk in the aftermath of Season 3

Hopper had been through a lot of shit over the past three years. Inter-dimensional rifts, little girls with telepathic powers, government conspiracies, missing garden gnomes- but somehow the most disconcerting thing is how John just...believes him when he tells the whole story. No, it’s more than that, it’s the fact that the bastard doesn’t even have the decency to look surprised, or shocked, or _anything_ other than mildly amused by the whole thing. It’s making him angry. When Jim is done (and in desperate need of another drink) John just nods and goes, “Yea, alright Jimmy.” and lights himself another cigarette, foot kicked up on the railing of the porch. Hopper wonders briefly if this is what having an aneurysm feels like.

“What do you mean, ‘alright’?”

“I mean alright, Jimmy, what the hell else do you want me to say?”

“Isn’t that the most fucked up story you’ve ever heard in your goddamn life?” he asks. Johnny just looks at him, shakes his head, smiles that fucking smirk Jim is really starting to hate “Not even close.” 

The worst part is that Hopper knows Winchester isn’t kidding. When he’s kidding the corners of his eyes crinkle up in the way he remembers all the girls used to think was real charming. But his smile is cold, and Jim knows that he means exactly what he said. He really, _really_ needs another drink.

“So you hunt monsters, do you, Johnny?” 

“Yep.”

“You told me you were a mechanic.”

“I _was_ a mechanic. Then everything went to shit, so while you were rescuing cats out of trees…”

“That’s the fire department, asshole.”

“… I started hunting these bastards down. They ain’t exactly the same brand of crazy you’ve got here, but I figure a monster is a monster.” He crushes out his cigarette and drops the butt into his empty beer can. Jim fumes for a little while longer. Kicks at a nail that’s sticking up out of the rotting boards of the porch. Wonders how his life managed to get this fucked up. Hopes El isn’t eaves dropping.

“Wait a minute, you’ve got kids!”

“Christ, Jimmy, nothing gets by you.” 

He wonders if he killed Winchester if he’d get away with it. Probably not, that stupid car of his would be too difficult to try to get rid of. “I meant, where are they? They know what you do? I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“They’re staying up with a friend of mine in South Dakota. ‘Nother hunter. Dean knows; Sammy doesn’t.”

“So you just, what, drag them across the country, shooting ghosts and committing credit card fraud?”

“You don’t shoot ghosts, but yea, I mostly bring them along. Bobby and Pastor Jim will watch them sometimes, if a job is too dangerous, but other than that,” John shrugs “Dean’s good at keeping Sammy out of trouble.” _That explains why Dean always looks like he’s about 30 years old_ , Jim thinks, wryly. 

“Why the hell are you doing this, then, Johnny?” He knows about Mary, now. But that doesn’t mean John has to take on every monster he catches wind of, doesn’t mean he has to have his family on the road all the time, doesn’t mean he has to leave his oldest son to raise the youngest. John doesn’t look at him, just stares out over the silent trees.

“Why are you, Jimmy?” he asks. And well, there’s no real answer for that, is there? 

Hopper rubs his hands over his face. He really, really, _really_ needs another drink. “Fuck this shit. Monsters, alternate dimensions, fucking Russians, government cover ups- every weird-ass thing I thought people were kooks for believing in all turn out to be real.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Bigfoot’s a hoax.” John says, laughing.

It doesn’t make him feel better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is set in 1986 (the year following season 3), so Dean would be 7. The timeline doesn’t quite line up (Dean's a little young for Jim to have seen them before as John was passing through), but I’m rolling with it anyway because I get a kick out of Hopper and John together.
> 
> Also, the line about Bigfoot is straight from Supernatural (Dean says it) and I just liked the idea that it is was a stock part of John's "the truth is out there" speech. 
> 
> I'm thinking of maybe doing a chapter from John's POV, so we will see. 
> 
> I own nothing, obviously


End file.
